Friday, 3 October 2014

Lines Composed a Few
Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour July 13,
1798. Extract.

Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.

These
beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man’s life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love.

" Hail gentle Shenstone ! Prince of Nambypamby !

Blest be thy lark, thy linnet, and thy lamby!" -
POLWHEL.

THE sort of fairy ground, over which Pastoral Poetry leads
its readers, has procured this species of composition numberless admirers; and
it has enjoyed the additional eclat of employing the classic pens of
Theocritus, Virgil, Pope, Gesner, and Guarini, besides various of the inspired
bards of the Old Testament. Yet its eternal monotony renders it disgusting to
persons of judgment and correct taste. However well executed, it is only fit to
be admired by children. (‘On Pastoral Poetry’, The Monthly Magazine, vol., 27, 1809)

Who can with patience bear the unmeaning and endless
repetition of faithless nymphs; dying swains; sighing breezes; purling rills;
murmuring fountains; cooling grots; listening echoes; enamelled meads; tender
lambkins; cooing doves; tuneful reeds; curling vines; perjured shepherds; and
the sickening train of Corydons and Daphnes—Strephons and Cloes—Damons and
Phillises? There may be occasionally a prettiness, which a man of understanding
will be pleased with, as we would with a pretty child; or, to come nearer to
the point, a pretty inanimate doll of a woman. It has, however, a fascination
for young minds. (‘On Pastoral Poetry’, The
Monthly Magazine, vol., 27, 1809)

So absurd is the common fiction in the sentiments and
situation of the characters, that Gay’s Shepherds Week, where the nymphs and the swains are mere men and women, employed in common occupations of
rustic life, and which was written purposely to exhibit pastorals in a
ludicrous view, is, from its adherence to nature more admired by the judicious,
than the fine lady and gentlemen shepherds of the great competitors Alexander
Pope, and Ambrose Philips. (‘On Pastoral Poetry’, The Monthly Magazine, vol., 27, 1809)

In making these observations, I am far from condemning all
pastoral poetry: Shakespeare’s As you
like it, his Winter’s Tale, and
other of his comedies, likewise Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd, cannot fail to give
the most exquisite pleasure to every person of taste. In these we have natural
pictures of country life, interwoven with interesting story, instead of the
insipid sing-song, and milk-and-water versification, by which we are surfeited
even in the first pastoral writers. (‘On Pastoral Poetry’, The Monthly Magazine, vol., 27, 1809)

PASTORAL POETRY is that kind of poetry which professes to
delineate the scenery, sentiment, and incidents of shepherd-life. (Chamber’s Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

Men were originally shepherds, and their festal songs and
hymns would derive at least substance and imagery from their primitive
occupations; but as a distinct branch of poetic art, pastoral poetry was not
cultivated till a comparatively late period; for although critics are fond of
pointing to the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs, and to the story of Ruth, as
specimens of the antiquity of the pastoral in the East, yet, as these profess
to be history, and not fiction, they can be instanced only to prove that the
material for this kind of poetry existed from the earliest ages. (Chamber’s Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

In point of fact, it was only after innocence and simplicity
had passed away, or were thought to have passed away, from real life, that men
began, half from fancy, and half from memory, to paint the manners of the past
as artless, and the lives of their ancestors as constantly happy. It was thus
the Brass Age that made the Golden. (Chamber’s
Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

Among the Latins, the refined and courtly Virgil, in the
reign of Augustus, wrote his Bucolica or Eclogues, on the model of his Greek
predecessors; but, however beautiful and melodious the verses of these urban
writers are, we cannot suppose for a moment that the rude shepherds and
shepherdesses of Italy or Sicily indulged in such refined sentiments, or spent
their time so poetically as there they are made to do. Virgil, we may rest
assured, is as far from giving a genuine picture of pastoral life in his verse,
as any modern poet who prates of Chloe and Phyllis. (Chamber’s Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

During the middle ages, pastoral poetry in this artistic,
and therefore conventional sense of the term, was almost unknown; but with the
first glimpse of reviving classicism, the pastoral reappears. (Chamber’s Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

The earliest
specimens are afforded by Boccaccio (q. v.), about the first modern Italian who
studied Greek. It is to the countrymen of Boccaccio that we owe the creation of
the pastoral drama, of which there is no trace in ancient literature. (Chamber’s Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

England,
however, can boast of Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar, which is at least full of
charming poetry, and is appropriately dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, whose
pastoral romance of Arcadia
outstrips in point of literary beauty all other lictions of that class. (Chamber’s Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

The Germans reckon Shakspeare’s As You Like It in the list
of pastoral dramas; but its right to be so classified is by no means clear,
although we may admit that it betrays the influence of the pastoral poetry and
romance that had just ceased to be the rage among the scholarly geniuses of Europe.
(Chamber’s Encyclopedia, vol., 7,
1872)

During the civil wars in the latter half of the 16th c, the
pastoral was turned to political uses. In the following century, it continued
for some time to be popular, or rather, let us say, fashionable. Even the great
Richelieu alleviated the cares of office with the
composition of La Grande Pastorale; but here, too, the poem soon gave way to
the prose romance, which was hardly less unreal, and far more exciting. (Chamber’s Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

Perhaps the best pastoral, ancient or modern, is the Gentle
Shepherd of Allan Ramsay, published in 1725. ‘It is,’ says Mr Carruthers‘a genuine picture of Scottish life, but of
life pa sed in simple rural employments, apart from the guilt and fever of
large towns, and reflecting only the pure and unsophisticated emotions of our
nature. The affected sensibilities and feigned distresses of the Corydons and
Delias find no place in Ramsay’s clear and manly page. He drew his shepherds
from the life, placed them in scenes which he actually saw, and made them speak
the language which he every day heard—the free idiomatic speech of his native
vales.’ (Chamber’s Encyclopedia,
vol., 7, 1872)

[Ramsay’s] English contemporaries, Pope, Ambrose Philips,
Gay, and others, who form the ‘Augustan,’ or Queen Anne school of poets, also
addicted themselves to the composition of pastoral poetry; but though there is
much fine description in the verses, they are, in general, purely conventional
performances, in imitation of the classic poets, who, as we have said, did not
themselves imitate nature. From this censure, however, must be excepted the six
pastorals of Gay, entitled the Shepherd’s Week, which are full of honest
country humour, and contain charming pictures of English country life. (Chamber’s Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

Since the early part of the 18th c, however, pastoral
poetry, strictly so called, has ceased to be cultivated in England
and almost everywhere else. In the pages of Wordsworth, who lived all his days
among the Cumberland shepherds, we
indeed find many exquisite glimpses of pastoral life, as it presented itself to
the profound and tender imagination of that great poet of nature, but few
direct delineations of pastoral manners. (Chamber’s
Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

The general impression appears to lie that the age of
pastoral poetry has passed away forever, and that Damon and Chloe will never
reappear in verse. (Chamber’s
Encyclopedia, vol., 7, 1872)

Alexander Pope, A
Discourse on Pastoral Poetry (1717)

The original of Poetry is ascribed to that Age which
succeeded the creation of the world: and as the keeping of flocks seems to have
been the sirst employment of mankind, the most ancient fort of poetry was
probably pastoral. It is natural to imagine,
that the leisure of those ancient shepherds admitting and inviting some
diversion, none was so proper to that solitary and sedentary life as singing;
and that in their songs they took occasion to celebrate their own felicity.
From hence a Poem was invented, and afterwards improved to a perfect image of
that happy time; which, by giving us an esteem for the virtues of a former age,
might recommend them to the present. And since the life of shepherds was
attended with more tranquillity than any other rural employment, the Poets
chose to introduce their Persons, from whom it received the name of Pastoral.

A Pastoral is an imitation of the action of a shepherd, or
one considered under that Character. The form of this imitation is dramatic, or
narrative, or mixed of bothc; the fable simple, the manners not too polite nor
too rustic: the thoughts are plain, yet admit a little quickness and passion,
but that short and flowing: the expression humble, yet as pure as the language
will afford; neat, but not florid; easy, and yet lively. In short, the fable,
manners, thoughts, and expressions are full of the greatest simplicity in
nature.

The complete character of this poem consists in simplicity,
brevity, and delicacy; the two first of which render an eclogue natural, and
the last delightful.

If we would copy Nature, it may be useful to take this Idea
along with us, that Pastoral is an image of what
they call the golden age. So that we are not to describe our shepherds as
shepherds at this day really are, but as they may be conceived then to have
been; when the best of men followed the employment.

And an air of piety to the Gods should shine through the
poem, which so visibly appears in all the works of antiquity: and it ought to
preserve some relish of the old way of writing; the connection should be loose,
the narrations and descriptions shortand the periods concise.

But with a respect to the
present age, nothing more conduces to make these composures natural, than when
some Knowledge in rural assairs is discoveredr.
This may be made to appear rather done by chance than on design, and sometimes
is best shewn by inference; lest by too much study to seem natural, we destroy
that easy simplicity from whence arises the delight. For what is inviting in
this fort of poetry proceeds not so much from the Idea of that business, as of
the tranquillity of a country life.

For the Doric had its beauty and propriety in the time of
Theocritus; it was used in part of Greece, and frequent in the mouths of many
of the greatest persons: whereas the old English and country phrases of Spenser
were either entirely obsolete, or spoken only by people of the lowest
condition. As there is a disserence betwixt
simplicity and rusticity, so the expression of simple thoughts should be plain,
but not clownish. The addition he has made of a Calendar
to his Eclogues, is very beautiful; since by this, besides the general moral of
innocence and simplicity, which is common to other authors of Pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares
human Life to the several Seasons, and at once exposes to his readers a view of the great and little worlds, in their various
changes and aspects.

In defence of Milton’s
Lycidas

The superiority of Milton’s
Lycidas to all pastoral poems in our language is, I should hope, acknowledged
by every man of true classical judgment; and Dr. Johnson’s strange
animadversions on it have been thus essectually answered. "Lycidas, (says
he,) is filled with the heathen deities; and a long train of mythological
imagery, such as a College easily supplies.—But it is also such as even the
Court itself could now have easily supplied. The public diversions, and books
of all sorts, and from all sorts of writers, more especially compositions in
poetry, were at this time over-run with classical pedantries. But what writer,
of the fame period, has made these obsolete sictions the vehicle of so much
fancy and poetical description? How beautifully has he applied this sort of
allusion to the Druidical rocks of Denbighshire, to Mona, and the fabulous
banks of Deva! It is objected, that its pastoral form is disgusting. But this
was the age of pastoral; and yet Lycidas has but little of the bucolic cant,
now so fashionable. The satyrs and fauns are but just mentioned. If any trite
rural topics occur, how are they heightened!

"Together both, ere the high lawns appear’d

Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,

We drove afield, and both together heard

What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,

Batt’ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night.

"Here the day-break is described by the faint
appearance of the upland lawns under the first gleams of light: the sun-set, by
the buzzing of the chaffer: and the night sheds her fresh dews on their flocks.
We cannot blame pastoral imagery and pastoral allegory, which carry with them
so much natural painting. In this piece there is perhaps more poetry than
sorrow. But let us read it for its poetry. It is true, that passion plucks no
berries from the myrtle and ivy, no calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells
of rough satyrs with cloven heel. But poetry does this; and in the hands of Milton,
does it with a peculiar and irresistible charm. Subordinate poets exercise no
invention, when they tell how a shepherd has lost his companion, and must feed
his flocks alone without any judge of his skill in piping: but Milton
dignifies and adorns these common artificial incidents with unexpected touches
of picturesque beauty, with the graces of sentiment, and with the novelties of
original genius. It is said, "here is no art, for there is nothing
new." But this objection will vanish, if we consider the imagery which Milton
has raised from local circumstances. Not to repeat the use he has made of the
mountains of Wales,
the Ifle of Man, and the river Dee, near which Lycidas
was ship-wrecked; let us recollect the introduction of the romantic
superstition of Saint Michael’s Mount in Cornwall,
which overlooks the Irish seas, the fatal scene of his friend’s disaster.

"But the poetry is not always unconnected with passion.
The poet lavishly describes an ancient sepulchral rite, but it is made
preparatory to a stroke of tenderness. He calls for a variety of flowers to
decorate his friend’s hearse, supposing that his body was present, and
forgetting for a while he was drowned; it was some consolation that he was to
receive the decencies of burial. This is a pleasing deception: it is natural
and pathetic. But the real catastrophe recurs. And this circumstance again
opens a new vein of imagination."

See :Poems of Milton, second edition, Robinson,
1791, p. 35.

Pope had not an eye for rural beauty, and for those natural
picturesque accompaniments which are essential to the Pastoral Drama. I do not
mean, that he had not a taste of rural embellishment—that is a different thing.
There are ten thousand appearances in the lights snd shades of Nature, which it
requires an habitual converse with rural scenery to delineate accurately; and
without these, the Pastoral Drama would lose its distinguisliing and most
beautiful features. I should class under this genus of Poetry, though not
strictly pastoral, the Philoctetes of Sophocles ; and how interesting are the
different views which the landscape presents, as accompanying the dramatic
part? From the beginning, where the dwelling of the miserable exile among the
rocks is set before us, to the last scene, where he bids adieu to his solitary
cave, the nymphs, or fairy beings, of the vallies,— all is in the most
exquisite vein of the rural and romantic Drama. But, perhaps, our own
Shakespear, in his As you like it,
has exhibited the most interesting specimen of the Drama connected with
Pastoral Scenery.The works of Alexander Pope. Editor’s Note. vol. 7, 1806.

Alexander Pope’s Letter to Mr. Walsh. Windsor
Forest, July 2, 1706.

[...] You have no less right to correct me, than the same
hand that raised a tree has to prune it. I am convinced, as well as you, that
one may correct too much; for in poetry as in painting, a man may lay colours
one upon another till they stiffen and deaden the piece. Besides, to bestow
heightening on every part is monstrous: Some parts ought to be lower than the
rest; and nothing looks more ridiculous than a work, where the thoughts,
however different in their own nature, seem all on a level: ‘Tis like a meadow
newly mown, where weeds, grass, and flowers, are all laid even, and appear
undistinguished. I believe too that sometimes our first thoughts are the best,
as the first squeezing of the grapes makes the finest and richest wine. The works of Alexander Pope, vol. 7,
1806.

I have not attempted any thing of a pastoral comedy, because
I think the taste of our age will not relish a poem of that sort. People seek
for what they call wit, on all subjects, and in all places; not considering
that nature loves truth so well, that it hardly ever admits of flourishing:
Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but
impairs what it would improve. There is a certain majesty in simplicity, which
is far above all the quaintness of wit; insomuch that the critics have excluded
wit from the loftiest poetry, as well as the lowest, and forbid it to the Epic
no less than the Pastoral. The works of
Alexander Pope, vol. 7, 1806.

If surprising discoveries should have place in the story of
a pastoral comedy, I believe it would be more agreeable to probability to make
them the effects of chance than of design; intrigue not being very consistent
with that innocence, which ought to constitute a shepherd’s character. The works of Alexander Pope, vol. 7,
1806.

I am inclined to think the pastoral comedy has another
disadvantage as to the manners: - Its general design is to make us in love with
the innocence of rural life, so that to introduce shepherds of a vicious
character must in some measure debase it: And hence it may come to pass, that
even the virtuous characters will not shine so much, for want of being opposed
to their contraries. These thoughts are purely my own, and therefore 1 have
reason to doubt them: but I hope your judgment will set me right. The works of Alexander Pope, vol. 7,
1806.

I would beg your opinion too as to another point: it is, how
far the liberty of borrowing may extend? I have defended it sometimes by
saying, that it seems not so much the perfection of fensed, to say things that
had never been said before, as to express those best that have been said
oftenest; and that writers, in the case of borrowing from others, are like
trees, which of themselves would produce only one sort of fruit, but by being
grafted upon others may yield variety. A mutual commerce makes poetry flourish;
but then poets, like merchants, should repay with something of their own what
they take from others; not, like pirates, make prize of all they meet. I desire
you to tell me sincerely, if I have not stretched this licence too far in these
pastorals? I hope to become a critic by your precepts, and a poet by your
example. The works of Alexander Pope, vol.
7, 1806.

LETTER FROM MR. WALSH to Alexander Pope, July 20, 1706.

I think you are perfectly in the
right in your notions of Pastoral; but I am of
opinion, that the redundancy of Wit you mention,
though it is what pleases the common people, is not
what ever pleases the best judges. The
works of Alexander Pope, vol. 7, 1806.

As for what you ask of the liberty of borrowing; it is very
evident the best Latin Poets have extended this very far; and none so far as
Virgil, who was the best of them. As for the Greek Poets, if we cannot trace
them so plainly, it is perhaps because we have none before them; it is evident
that most of them borrowed from Homer, and Homer has been accused of burning
those that wrote before him, that his thefts might not be discovered. The best
of the modern Poets in all languages are those that have the nearest copied the
Ancients. Indeed, in all the common subjects of Poetry, the thoughts are so
obvious (at least if they are natural), that whoever ever writes last, must
write things like what have been said before. But
they may as well applaud the Ancients for the arts
of eating and drinking, and accuse the Moderns of having stolen those
inventions, from them; it being evident in all such
cases, that whoever lived first, must, first find them out. It is true, indeed, when when there are one or two bright
thoughts stolen, and all the rest is quite different from it,
a poem makes a very foolish figure: But when it is
all melted down together, and the gold of the Ancients so mixed with that of
the Moderns, that none can distinguish the one from - the other, I can never
find fault with it. The works of Alexander Pope, vol. 7, 1806.

Letter from Mr. Walsh to Alexander Pope. Sept. 9, 1706

[...] Having been absent about six weeks, I read over your
Pastorals again, with a great deal of pleasure, and to judge the better, read
Virgil’s Eclogues, and Spenser’s Calendar, at the fame time; and, I assure you, I continue the fame opinion I had always of them. By
the little hints you take upon all occasions to
improve them, it is probable you
will make them yet better against winter; though there is a mean to be
kept even in that too, and a man may correct his verses till he takes away the
true spirit of them; especially if he submits to the correction of some who
pass for great Critics, by mechanical rules, and never enter into the true
design and Genius of an author. I have seen some of these that would hardly
allow any one good Ode in Horace, who cry Virgil wants fancy, and that Homer,
is very incorrect. While they talk at this rate, one would think them above the
common rate of mortals: But generally they are great admirers of Ovid and
Lucan; and when they write themselves, we find out all the mystery. The works of Alexander Pope, vol. 7,
1806.

Robert Burns (1759–1796).

‘Poem on Pastoral Poetry’

HAIL, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv’d!

In chase o’ thee, what crowds hae swerv’d

Frae common sense, or sunk enerv’d

’Mang
heaps o’ clavers:

And och! o’er aft thy joes hae starv’d,

’Mid
a’ thy favours!

Say, Lassie, why, thy train amang,

While loud the trump’s heroic clang,

And sock or buskin skelp alang

To
death or marriage;

Scarce ane has tried
the shepherd-sang

But
wi’ miscarriage?

In Homer’s craft Jock Milton thrives;

Eschylus’ pen Will Shakespeare drives;

Wee Pope, the knurlin’, till him rives

Horatian fame;

In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives

Even
Sappho’s flame.

But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?

They’re no herd’s ballats, Maro’s catches;

Squire Pope but busks
his skinklin’ patches

O’
heathen tatters:

I pass by hunders, nameless wretches,

That
ape their betters.

In this braw age o’ wit and lear,

Will nane the Shepherd’s whistle mair

Blaw sweetly in its native air,

And
rural grace;

And, wi’ the far-fam’d Grecian, share

A
rival place?

Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan!

There’s ane; come forrit, honest Allan!

Thou need na jouk behint the hallan,

A
chiel sae clever;

The teeth o’ time may gnaw Tantallan,

But
thou’s for ever.

Thou paints auld Nature to the nines,

In thy sweet Caledonian lines;

Nae gowden stream thro’ myrtle twines,

Where
Philomel,

While nightly breezes sweep the vines,

Her
griefs will tell!

In gowany glens thy burnie strays,

Where bonie lasses bleach their claes,

Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,

Wi’
hawthorns gray,

Where blackbirds join the shepherd’s lays,

At
close o’ day.

Thy rural loves are Nature’s sel’;

Nae bombast spates o’ nonsense swell;

Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell

O’
witchin love,

That charm that can the strongest quell,

The
sternest move.

J.W. von Goethe (1749–1832).

Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.

Book I, Chapter XV

HAPPY season of youth! Happy times of the first wish of
love! A man is then like a child, that can for hours delight itself with an
echo, can support alone the charges of conversation, and be well contented with
its entertainment, if the unseen interlocutor will but repeat the concluding
syllables of the words addressed to it.1

So was it with
Wilhelm in the earlier and still more in the later period of his passion for
Mariana: he transferred the whole wealth of his own emotions to her, and looked
upon himself as a beggar that lived upon her alms; and as a landscape is more
delightful, nay is delightful only, when it is enlightened by the sun, so
likewise in his eyes were all things beautified and glorified which lay round
her or related to her.2

Often would he stand
in the theatre behind the scenes, to which he had obtained the freedom of
access from the manager. In such cases, it is true, the perspective magic was
away; but the far mightier sorcery of love then first began to act. For hours
he could stand by the sooty light-frame, inhaling the vapour of tallow lamps,
looking out at his mistress; and when she returned and cast a kindly glance
upon him, he could feel himself lost in ecstasy, and though close upon laths
and bare spars, he seemed transported into paradise. The stuffed bunches of
wool denominated lambs, the waterfalls of tin, the paper roses and the
one-sided huts of straw, awoke in him fair poetic visions of an old pastoral
world. Nay, the very dancing-girls, ugly as they were when seen at hand, did
not always inspire him with disgust: they trod the same floor with Mariana. So
true is it, that love, which alone can give their full charm to rose-bowers,
myrtle-groves and moonshine, can also communicate, even to shavings of wood and
paper-clippings, the aspect of animated nature. It is so strong a spice, that
tasteless, or even nauseous soups are by it rendered palatable.3

So potent a spice
was certainly required to render tolerable, nay at last agreeable, the state in
which he usually found her chamber, not to say herself.

Extract from ‘Yarrow Visited’ (1814), by William Wordsworth
(1770–1850)

Delicious is the Lay that sings

The haunts of happy lovers,

The path that leads them to the grove,35

The leafy grove that covers:

And pity sanctifies the verse

That paints, by strength of sorrow,

The unconquerable strength of love;

Bear witness, rueful Yarrow!40

But thou that didst appear so fair

To fond imagination

Dost rival in the light of day

Her delicate creation:

Meek loveliness is round thee spread,45

A softness still and holy:

The grace of forest charms decay’d,

And pastoral melancholy.

Sidney’s
literary work was all published after his death, some of it against his express
desire. The “Arcadia,” an elaborate
pastoral romance written in a highly ornate prose mingled with verse, was
composed for the entertainment of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. The
collection of sonnets, “Astrophel and Stella,” was called forth by Sidney’s
relation to Penelope Devereux, daughter of the Earl of Essex. While they were
both little more than children, there had been some talk of a marriage between
them; but evidence of any warmth of feeling appears chiefly after Penelope’s
unhappy marriage to Lord Rich. There has been much controversy over the
question of the sincerity of these remarkable poems, and over the precise
nature of Sidney’s sentiments
toward the lady who inspired them, some regarding them as undisguised outpourings
of a genuine passion, others as mere conventional literary exercises. The more
recent opinion is that they express a platonic devotion such as was common in
the courtly society of the day, and which was allowed by contemporary opinion
to be compatible with the marriage of both parties.

‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’

John Keats (1795–1821)

THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of
Silence and slow Time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more
sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape5

Of deities or
mortals, or of both

In Tempe
or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are
these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and
timbrels? What wild ecstasy?10

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter;
therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

Pipe to the spirit
ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave15

Thy song, nor ever
can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never,
never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade,
though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou
love, and she be fair!20

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor
ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearièd,

For ever piping
songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!25

For ever warm and
still to be enjoy’d,

For ever panting
and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart
high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

A burning
forehead, and a parching tongue.30

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar,
O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken
flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea-shore,35

Or mountain-built
with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of its
folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and
not a soul, to tell

Why thou art
desolate, can e’er return.40

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and
maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form!
dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral!45

When old age shall
this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain,
in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend
to man, to whom thou say’st,

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth,
and all ye need to know.’50

‘Kinds of Poetry’

Narrative thus stories forth the doings of
others; the lyric rises out of oneself. And here again the scope is limitless.
A lyric may phrase emotion in its purest essence: it is then the absolute lyric
or song. The emotion, gathering about a simple little scene in nature, may
utter itself briefly and beautifully in an idyl; conceived on a more
extensive scale, a poem of rustic life, actual or feigned, becomes a pastoral.The passion of grief finds voice in the elegy.A
lyric may mirror the large aspects of nature as colored by the poet’s feeling,
and so it passes over into descriptive poetry. Sensuous elements may be
subordinated to thought or to sympathy; and the poem so inspired expresses
reflection and sentiment. Exaltation of thought and mood, moving through
sustained and complex metrical form, finds a fitting medium in the ode.

Coming into Canterbury,
I loitered through the old streets with a sober pleasure that calmed my spirits,
and eased my heart. There were the old signs, the old names over the shops, the
old people serving in them. It appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy
there, that I wondered the place was so little changed, until I reflected how
little I was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was
inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where she
dwelt. The venerable Cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks whose
airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done; the
battered gateways, once stuck full with statues, long thrown down, and crumbled
away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still nooks,
where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls;
the ancient houses, the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden;
everywhere—on everything—I felt the same serener air, the same calm,
thoughtful, softening spirit.

Don Quixote . By
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616).

The Fourth Book. Chapter XXIV.

Relating That Which
the Goatherd Told to Those That Carried Away Don Quixote

To be brief, Anselmo and myself resolved to abandon the
village and come to this valley, where, he feeding a great flock of sheep of
his own, and I as copious a herd of goats of mine, we pass our lives among
these trees, giving vent to our passions, either by singing together the
beautiful Leandra’s praises or dispraises, or by sighing alone, and alone
communicating our quarrelsome complaints with Heaven. Many others of Leandra’s
suitors have since, by our example, come to these intricate woods, where they
use our very exercise; and they are so many as it seems that this place is
converted into the pastoral Arcadia; it is full of shepherds and sheepfolds,
and there is no one part thereof wherein the name of the beautiful Leandra
resoundeth not. There one doth curse her, and termeth her humours inconstant
and dishonest; another condemns her of being so facile and light; some one
absolves and pardons her; another condemns and despises her, and celebrates her
beauty; another execrates her disposition; and finally, all blame, but yet
adore her; and the raving distraction of them all doth so far extend itself, as
some one complains of disdain that never spoke word unto her, and some one
laments and feels the enraged fits of jealousy though she never ministered any
occasion thereof; for, as I have said, her sin was known before her desires.
There is no cleft of a rock, no bank of a stream, nor shadow of a tree, without
some shepherd or other, that breathes out his misfortunes to the silent air.
The echo repeats Leandra’s name wheresoever it can be formed; the woods resound
Leandra; the brooks do murmur Leandra; and Leandra holds us all perplexed and
enchanted, hoping without hope, and fearing without knowledge what we fear.3

‘And among all this
flock of frantic men, none shows more or less judgment than my companion,
Anselmo, who, having so many other titles under which he might plain him, only
complains of absence, and doth to the sound of a rebec (which he handles
admirably well) sing certain doleful verses, which fully discover the
excellency of his conceit. I follow a more easy and, in mine opinion, a more
certain way—to wit, I rail on the lightness of women, on their inconstancy,
double-dealing, dead promises, cracked trust, and the small discretion they
show in placing of their affections; and this, sir, was the occasion of the
words and reasons I lately used to this goat, whom I do esteem but little
because she is a female, although she be otherwise the best of all my herd. And
this is the history which I promised to tell you, wherein, if I have been
prolix, I will be altogether as large in doing you any service; for I have here
at hand my cabin, and therein store of fresh milk and savoury cheese, with many
sorts of excellent fruit, no less agreeable to the sight than pleasing to the
taste.’

John Milton. (1608–1674).Comus, a Mask

The TWO BROTHERS.

Eld. Bro. Unmuffle,
ye faint stars; and thou, fair Moon,

That wont’st to love the travailler’s benison,

Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud,335

And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here

In double night of darkness and of shades;

Or, if your influence be quite dammed up

With black usurping mists, some gentle taper,

Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole340

Of some clay habitation, visit us

With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,

And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,

Or Tyrian Cynosure.

Sec. Bro. Or, if our
eyes345

Be barred that happiness, might we but hear

The folded flocks, penned in their wattled cotes,

Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops,

Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock

Count the night-watches to his feathery dames,350

’Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering,

In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.

But, Oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister!

Where may she wander now, whither betake her

From the chill dew, amongst rude burs and thistles?355

Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now,

Or ’gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm

Leans her unpillowed head, fraught with sad fears.

What if in wild amazement and affright,

Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp360

Of savage hunger, or of savage heat!

Samuel Johnson,Preface to Shakespeare, (1765)

He [Shakespeare] had
no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to one age or nation,
without scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions of another, at the
expence not only of likelihood, but of possibility. These faults Pope has
endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, to transfer to his imagined
interpolators. We need not wonder to find Hector quoting Aristotle, when we see
the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothick mythology of
fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only violator of chronology, for in
the same age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning, has, in his
Arcadia, confounded the pastoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence,
quiet and security, with those of turbulence, violence, and adventure.36

In his comick scenes
he is seldom very successful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations
of smartness and contests of sarcasm; their jests are commonly gross, and their
pleasantry licentious; neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy,
nor are sufficiently distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined
manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy
to determine; the reign of Elizabeth
is commonly supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality and reserve;
yet perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not very elegant. There must,
however, have been always some modes of gayety preferable to others, and a
writer ought to chuse the best.

William Wordsworth (1815)

Essay Supplementary to Preface

The arts by which Pope, soon afterwards, contrived to
procure to himself a more general and a higher reputation than perhaps any
English Poet ever attained during his lifetime, are known to the judicious. and
as well known is it to them, that the undue exertion of those arts is the cause
why Pope has for some time held a rank in literature, to which, if he had not
been seduced by an over-love of immediate popularity, and had confided more in
his native genius, he never could have descended. He bewitched the nation by
his melody, and dazzled it by his polished style and was himself blinded by his
own success. Having wandered from humanity in his Eclogues with boyish inexperience,
the praise, which these compositions obtained, tempted him into a belief that
Nature was not to be trusted, at least in pastoral Poetry. to prove this by
example, he put his friend Gay upon writing those Eclogues which their author
intended to be burlesque. The instigator of the work, and his admirers, could
perceive in them nothing but what was ridiculous. Nevertheless, though these
Poems contain some detestable passages, the effect, as Dr. Johnson well
observes, ‘of reality and truth became conspicuous even when the intention was
to show them grovelling and degraded.’ The Pastorals, ludicrous to such as
prided themselves upon their refinement, in spite of those disgusting passages,
‘became popular, and were read with delight, as just representations of rural
manners and occupations.’

Wednesday, 16 April 2014

The publication of a new edition of Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy
(1904) presents a timely opportunity to explore a classic expression of
the theory and practice of tragic drama. This is also an opportunity for
new readers to encounter a distinctive appreciation of Shakespeare’s
work in the context of more recent literary and cultural theories. In
the process, the obstacles to a clear understanding of what Bradley
thought are explored, and we seek to explain why many critics were often
hostile to his writings on Shakespeare. We then proceed to an
interrogation of Bradley’s philosophy of tragedy in the context the
wider project of the development of English Studies as an educational
discipline since the end of the nineteenth century. This frame of
analysis will also be informed by recent post-colonial theories which
will be positioned within the context of literary study understood as a
distinctive project of enlightened humane education. [...] One of the
predicaments for Bradley, writing at the beginning of the twentieth
century is how to accommodate a true representation of Shakespearean
tragedy that responds to the ideology of the nineteenth century. He is
writing in the context of the British imperial project and mass
industrialisation, but ten years before the cataclysmic events of the
First World War (1914-18). In this regard, the virtual absence of any
historical particularities is a noteworthy silence in the text. One
criticism might be that the romantic timelessness of Shakespeare seeks
to naturalize a world order that is already showing signs of political
if not ideological crisis.